


Midnight

by FullMetalBitch



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: AU, Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Attempt at Humor, Bars and Pubs, Drunkenness, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Fluffy Ending, Humor, M/M, New Year's Eve, New Year's Fluff, New Year's Kiss, One Shot, Partying, Romance, Romantic Fluff, just plotless fluffiness mostly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 16:58:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1949076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullMetalBitch/pseuds/FullMetalBitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi hates the annual office New Year’s Eve party. Then he meets a charismatic stranger at the bar, and the night takes a different turn. As the clock ticks closer to midnight, Levi comes out of his shell and gets way more than he bargained for.</p><p>Or: the one where everyone's drunk, Eren plays Pac-Man, and Levi maybe, kind of falls in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midnight

“Come on, Levi, don’t be such a partypooper!” Hanji shouted, red-faced and giggling, her glasses askew. “Have a drink with me!” 

“I already said no, Glasses,” he admonished her, drumming his fingers on the bar. “I’d prefer not to make a fool of myself in public.”

Hanji pouted and took a sloppy sip from her Long Island iced tea, spilling drops to the sticky floor. “Boo, you’re no fun,” she slurred, and danced away into the crowd of their coworkers.

The same thing happened every year: New Year’s Eve came around, and the company Levi worked for, Survey Corps., threw a party at the Trost Bar. Levi always insisted he didn’t want to go, and then Hanji begged him and guilted him until he finally agreed to accompany her. Then everyone got shitfaced while Levi lingered, awkward and sober and completely out of place.

This year’s party was no different. Happy fucking New Year to him once again.

They were idiots. All of them. Levi watched with a judgmental frown as they grinded on each other, stupid and drunk, doing things they wouldn’t even remember come morning. Suddenly, Connie and Sasha toppled into the stool next to Levi’s, a tangled mess of limbs, tongues slurping as they moaned and made out.

They didn’t even notice when Levi disgustedly got to his feet and stormed away. He checked his watch, and to his dismay, discovered that it was only nine o’clock.

 _Fuck this, I’m checking out early,_ Levi thought. _Hanji’s probably too wasted to tell I’m gone, anyway._

He strode past the bar and toward the exit, pushing through throngs of people in party hats chattering and laughing, clinking bottles, making toasts for the new year. When he was about ten feet from the door, a pissed-off girl with running mascara slammed into him and sent him reeling. She rushed to the bathroom in tears (way to start off the new year, princess), and Levi tumbled to the floor of the entryway, a small space crammed with shitty, ancient pinball machines and arcade games.

He huffed out a frustrated breath. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he grumbled, lifting his pant leg to inspect a soon-to-be-bruise. “Great. As if this night couldn’t get any better.”

“Shit,” someone muttered.

Levi looked up from his scraped knee to see a young guy crouched over a Pac-Man game. He rolled his eyes. It was some loser, definitely, wasting money on a useless video game. Bars, Levi decided, were like recess for little kids, with children playing games and screaming and crying as they pushed and shoved each other.

The guy reached into his pocket as GAME OVER flashed on the screen. He lifted out a quarter and then noticed Levi’s harsh gaze on him.

“Do you, uh, need help getting up?” he asked, and Levi realized he was still sprawled out on the ground from his fall. 

“No,” he snapped, angrily getting to his feet. 

“Oh. Well, did you want to play?” the boy asked, gesturing to the Pac-Man machine. 

Levi shook his head. The guy was actually sort of cute, with pretty eyes, a warm smile, and thick, dark hair. He shrugged at Levi and then inserted the quarter. In a second he was absorbed in the game and paid Levi no attention.

Levi looked at the door and then back at the bar, where Hanji was doing shots before a cheering crowd. For some reason, he found himself drawing closer to the Pac-Man boy and watched him play. The kid skillfully directed the little yellow monster around the levels, getting every ghost and fruit and bonus along the way.

“Huh,” Levi muttered. “You’re pretty good at this.”

The boy chuckled, but kept his eyes trained on the screen. “When you don’t like getting drunk and all your friends do, you get lots of practice with whatever’s around.”

Levi half-smiled. “Tell me about it.” He pointed to Hanji, who was now on her third shot and was wobbling unsteadily while Erwin held her up by the shoulder. “That’s my co-worker. I don’t want to become that.” When the guy laughed, Levi added, “I’m Levi, by the way. I don’t drink.”

“Eren. I don’t drink, either.” Eren had lost his game while talking to Levi, and the machine made the “you lose” noise. Eren sighed. “That was my last quarter.”

“Oh.” Levi laughed dryly. “Guess there’s nothing left to do.”

“Except drink.”

A long, quiet pause stretched between them. Eren looked at Levi almost expectantly.

“It’s a shame we don’t drink.”

“Yeah. Guess it’s time to go home.”

Another pause.

“Can I buy you a drink?” Levi ended up asking.

Eren smirked. “Thought you’d never ask.”

________________________________________

“What’ll you have?” the bartender asked. He looked annoyed and overworked, and his eyes kept drifting to customers in the back picking fights.

Levi and Eren exchanged confused looks. “What are we supposed to order?”

Eren shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I’ve never gotten this far.”

Levi put on his most confident face, and, feeling sheepish, announced to the bartender, “We’ll have two Manhattans.”

The bartender, seeming unamused, hustled off. When Levi looked over at Eren, he was grinning.

“What?”

“Nothing. You just look so nervous. It was cute, that’s all.”

Levi felt his face getting hot. Was this kid flirting with him? Actually, in real life, was another man flirting with him? He went into defense mode, solidifying his trademark I-Don’t-Give-A-Shit look and glancing away, but he felt Eren’s gaze on the back of his neck as intensely as one feels the sun on their skin at the beach.

“Brat,” he fired, with no real animosity. He cringed at how lame he sounded. This fucking kid was messing with him.

Eren only chuckled.

“So,” Levi attempted, “what the fuck are you doing in a place like this?” The Trost Bar was nothing short of a dive, and plenty of shady people frequented it. Even now he saw at least three different guys who looked like drug dealers and one who could have passed for a sex offender. Eren looked like a kid who generally kept his nose clean, and he definitely didn’t seem like the type to party here.

“I could ask the same of you.”

“It’s a party for work my friend dragged me to. Fucking terrible. I’ve got nothing to do except talk to you, brat.”

Eren smiled knowingly. “I’m here because my sister’s out of town, and my best friend is on winter vacation. With his family, you know. I got no one else. My apartment was so quiet and pathetic that I forced myself to go out into the world. I thought maybe if I went someplace crowded, like a bar full of happy drunk people, some of that happiness would rub off on me.”

“Did it work?”

“I’ve spent the past two hours wasting over six dollars in quarters on Pac-Man games. How do you think it went?”

“Mmm,” Levi mused. “Not so great, I’m guessing. At least you did something, though. I’ve been staring at my watch all night counting the minutes until it’s 2015 and I can leave and go to bed. People think I’m antisocial.”

“Maybe you _are_ antisocial.” Eren had that wry, smug look on his face again, a tease, a challenge, a first-move-waiting-for-Levi’s-counterattack. Levi had an overwhelming desire to either smack it off his face or kiss him until the expression fell away.

“I’m talking to _you,_ aren’t I?” God, this kid was a little shit.

“I don’t count.”

Levi’s eyebrows furrowed. “Why not?”

Eren shrugged. “I’m just...you know, here. I’m just me.”

“What’s so bad about you?”

Before Eren could respond, the bartender set down two chilled glasses. Both men stared at them in trepidation. Levi hated the stuff, really, but if it made socializing easier...if it made Eren stick around with him...well, it was worth a try.

Levi reached for his glass, but Eren got to his own first. “Cheers,” he said, and then took a massive gulp. He immediately gagged, made a hilarious face, and then choked it down.

“Graceful,” Levi remarked with one eyebrow raised.

“Okay then, big shot, take a sip. Prove how manly and tough you are. Really. I’d love to see it.”

“Fine. I will.” Levi brought the glass to his lips and took several large slurps. He hadn’t had a drink since his twenty-first birthday, and the whiskey and bitters made his eyes water slightly. However, he felt a weird need to impress Eren (this brat kept watching him, like he was waiting for something amazing to happen), so he swallowed it and flashed a cheeky grin, ignoring the burning sensation in his throat.

Eren shook his head, feigning disappointment. “God. You’re becoming an alcoholic right before my very eyes.”

Levi lost it at that, and soon they were both laughing. In a few minutes they’d both taken down the Manhattans and had ordered two more. Levi’s head felt light and bubbly, fuzzy with the beginning tipsiness of a buzz. It wasn’t a bad feeling, really, and he liked how Eren smiled crookedly as he grew tipsier.

Poor kid was probably a lightweight.

The arrival of their second set of drinks was accompanied by Hanji nearly taking Eren off the bar stool with an inescapable bear hug. Alarmed, Eren squirmed, but Levi assured him, “She’s harmless. Just a moron.”

“I’m not a moron!” Hanji beamed. She released Eren. Her hair had fallen out of its ponytail and hung in her face in a frizzy, sweaty clump. “You enjoying the party?”

Levi tried to look nonchalant. “It’s better now that I’ve found this kid.” He gestured to Eren, who took a sip from his drink and nodded at Hanji.

She looked at Eren as if seeing him for the same time. “Wait, you’re having a drink with _this_ shrimpy-ass punk and you wouldn’t have one with _me_?”

“I dunno, glasses. He convinced me.”

“Pffffft. Excuses, excuses. I see how it is. Well, I’ll leave you to your boyfriend, then.”

Both Eren and Levi froze in place at the word "boyfriend".

Hanji flounced away, Erwin trailing behind her with a shot glass in his hand. Levi purposefully glued his eyes to anything other than Eren. Leave it to Hanji to spit something out like that. Certainly Eren would be scared away now. They had just been friends having a couple of drinks at the bar, right? It didn’t have to be anything more than that, did it?

Then Hanji had to open her trap and fuck it all up.

When the bartender came around again, Levi ordered them two more drinks in the awkward silence.

“Boyfriend, huh?” Eren finally questioned, head cocked like a confused puppy, and Levi couldn’t help but think how cute he was, how naive.

“That’s just Hanji. I mean, she’s hammered beyond belief, don’t worry about what she says,” Levi prattled.

Eren fell quiet, wiping at the condensation outside his glass.

“Hey, _do_ you have a boyfriend?” Levi asked casually, the question that had been on his mind most of the evening. “Or a girlfriend, or...anything?”

“Nope.” Eren put a hand on his shoulder. “Just you. Whatever you are.” He leaned in close. “Don’t be embarrassed, Levi. I like you. I really do.”

Levi felt a fluttering in his stomach. Could it be possible? “I…” he stammered, “I like you, too.”

“Cool. As long as we’re on the same page.”

________________________________________

“I’m _drunk_. Shit,” Levi scolded himself. Then he giggled, and his own giggle enraged him. Three was his limit. He felt like he was two Manhattans away from Hanji-level dancing, and he refused to stoop so low.

Eren, on the other hand, was precisely the lightweight Levi had predicted. His hair had gotten disheveled, and a wild, beautifully _alive_ gleam sparked in his blue eyes.

“Levi.”

“What?”

“Levi.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Levi. Dance with me,” Eren pleaded, clinging to Levi’s hand. The touch sent shivers down his spine.

“No. No way.” He liked Eren a lot, he really did, but dancing was too far.

“Please. I’ll be your best friend.”

“How immature. What is this, first grade?”

“...Yes.”

“Eren, no.”

“You suck.”

“Don’t be rude,” Levi chastised. “Can’t we just stay here? I don’t like making a spectacle of myself.”

“But it’s boring. Come dance, and if you don’t enjoy it, I’ll go away forever.”

“Those are some big words you're throwing around there. You sure?”

“Duh.”

“Fine,” Levi said reluctantly, in total disbelief of what he was allowing himself to do. Why was he letting this kid take him over? They’d known each other for a few hours and already Levi felt this ridiculous attachment to him. He would have brushed off anyone else by now, gone into his own lonely world, and disappeared into his thoughts. Something about Eren was different, he admitted to himself.

Eren dragged him onto the dance floor in the blink of an eye, and he was moving all over the place. It wasn’t dancing so much as it was rapid crazy uncoordinated psycho movements. Levi flushed and stood stock-still as everyone hooted at Eren and his bizarre dance moves.

“Come on, Levi, just do what I do!”

“No, no thanks.”

Eren grabbed both of Levi’s arms and pulled him back and forth, leading him. He twirled Levi around until he felt dizzier, dizzier, and the music was nothing Levi recognized: too modern, some kind of irritatingly catchy bubblegum pop, and over the song all he could hear was laughter and Eren breathing and they were simply two strangers who barely knew each other but this was all he wanted, right here, right now. Levi saw Erwin and the others watching and cackling alongside the bar, and he felt an abrupt urge to cut and run, but then Eren pulled him in close and whispered, “I’m really glad I met you.”

And then Levi danced. He definitely looked like an idiot, jerking his arms and bobbing his head with no real rhythm, but it didn't matter.

Because Levi was glad he’d met Eren, too.

________________________________________

“Sixty!”  
“Fifty-nine!”  
“Fifty-eight!”

Everyone in the bar had their attention focused on the television (everyone, that is, except for Hanji, who was passed out in a booth). Eren and Levi sat together, watching the illuminated ball slowly slide down on the TV screen.

“Another year gone,” Levi muttered, somewhat bitterly.

“Another year beginning,” Eren retorted. 

And Levi realized he was right, that a new beginning had been planted tonight. There was no denying it, no ignoring the way Eren gingerly reached for Levi’s hand, no disregarding the way Levi willingly laced his fingers with Eren’s. All this because of a girl not looking where she was going, a trip, and a lonely boy playing video games on New Year’s Eve.

“Fifty!”  
“Forty-nine!”  
“Forty-eight!”

That's when Levi remembered Eren's comment from earlier that night: “Before, when we'd just sat at the bar...what did you mean about you not counting?” Levi asked.

“It’s nothing, Levi.”

“You can tell me.”

“Forty!”  
“Thirty-nine!”  
“Thirty-eight!”

“I meant...well, I just meant I didn’t think I was good enough for you.”

“Thirty!”  
“Twenty-nine!”  
“Twenty-eight!”

Eren, this kind, sarcastic kid? This absurd dancer, this barely-able-to-swallow-alcohol sweetheart? _That_ Eren didn’t think he was good enough for a cynical, antisocial man like Levi?

“Twenty!”  
“Nineteen!  
“Eighteen!”

Levi put a hand under Eren’s chin and looked into his eyes. Eren bit his lip, perhaps feeling ashamed.

“Ten!”  
“Nine!”  
“Eight!”

“Eren, I promise you, you are more than good enough for me.”

“Three!”  
“Two!”  
“One!”

Then Eren was leaning in and Levi let him, and they were bending closer, wrapping arms tighter. Suddenly their lips pressed together, softly, delicately, and amidst all the shouting and noisemakers and wishes of a happy new year, Levi and Eren fell into a tiny pocket of time that was completely, utterly silent.

________________________________________

They stayed after, chatting about this and that, and Eren bought another drink.

Big mistake.

It was almost two in the morning, the bar was closed, and Eren was very entertained by the streetlamp beside the sidewalk. 

“Come on, buddy, it’s time to go home,” Levi yawned, tugging Eren.

“S’okay, I can drive myself home. No worries." He pawed at the cool metal of the lamppost. "How do street lights work?”

“You’re wasted, brat. You’re not driving anywhere. I’m getting you a cab.” Levi hailed a taxi and yanked Eren away from the street lamp. He helped guide Eren’s mess of drunken limbs into the back seat. “Alright. Well...I guess we’ll see each other again sometime.”

“Aren’t you coming with me?” Eren garbled. 

Levi shook his head. “It’s late. I should really be getting home.”

“I’ll make ya coffee or something. Get in, come on.” Eren pulled at Levi’s arm, and before he knew it he was riding along in the seat beside him. 

Eren had nodded off in seconds, and he snuggled up against Levi’s shoulder. A warmth crept into his chest at the feeling of someone so close to him. Levi wound up petting at Eren’s hair and marveling at this kid, how trusting he was to let himself fall asleep beside someone he’d just met in the back of a taxi that could have been heading anywhere.

When they’d reached Eren’s apartment building, Levi roused him. 

"Which apartment's yours?"

"C-28," he murmured. "It's got a couch." 

After flinging whatever cash was left in his pockets at the driver, Levi carefully coaxed Eren out of the car, into the building, and up the stairs to apartment C-28. Eren slumped against Levi’s shoulder the whole way there, and when they arrived, he attempted to reach for the coffeepot in his kitchen.

Levi stopped him. “Don't worry about it, Eren. Go to bed.”

Eren nodded sleepily, like that was the best idea he’d ever heard, and Levi helped Eren into his bedroom. The kid collapsed to the bed completely clothed.

“Levi?”

“Hmm?”

“Why don’t you come into bed with me? Spend the night?”

Levi stepped back. “No way, Eren. I’m not getting under any covers unless you’re sober.”

“I’m so, so sober.”

“I don’t believe you, kid.”

“Hmmph.”

Eren was asleep, anyway, before Levi could protest further. After a moment's hesitation, Levi leaned down and planted a kiss on Eren's forehead.

________________________________________

Eren awoke to overly-bright sunlight stinging his eyes. His head pounded in time to his heartbeat, every sound was too loud, and his brain felt like it was shrouded in fog. Despite the effects of a hangover that indicated a fucking amazing night, Eren felt lost, like he was missing something.

He stretched and got out of bed, then noticed a napkin stuck to his bedside table.

_Eren,_

_(174) 555-3180  
You count._

Eren remembered now.

He reached for his phone.

**Author's Note:**

> I really needed Levi helping out shitfaced, sleepy Eren, and I really needed a New Year's Eve kiss, so bam, this happened. Took a quick break from Blood, Sex, and Booze to write this. I hope you liked it, lol.


End file.
